Lisa's F-Cancer Blog

Damn taste bud changes have gotten worse. Not only do certain foods taste too sweet, now some are tasting bland. Tonight we had a dinner that’s normally very tasty, but all the different parts tasted the same: bland! I’ve been having trouble finding snacks and other things to eat – and now this issue is seeping into my meals too.

I did some Googling, and apparently it can take 1-2 months after chemo for taste buds to return to normal!!

While Googling, I couldn’t resist looking up other side effects. I found one on breastcancer.org on hair loss, which offered a typical timetable for hair regrowth on the head:

• 3–4 weeks after chemotherapy ends: soft fuzz
• 1 month to 6 weeks after: real hair starts to grow
• 2–3 months after: about an inch of hair
• 3–6 months: about 2–3 inches of hair
• 12 months: 4–6 inches of hair

So my question is if I already have soft fuzz before chemo is over, does that potentially mean that the real hair might come in sooner once chemo ends? Aaron thinks I’ve moved into the second phase already, but it’s white hair and hard to tell. Regardless, it’s gonna be a long time before I reach my previous length!

The closer I get to the end, indeed, the harder it gets!

Now that Doran is 18, he can come with me to chemo. I took him out of school today so he could do just that. I figured it would be a good experience for him to see what I’ve been doing every week. One of the first questions he asked was, “Are you going to be unconscious at all?” See, all the more reason for him to come!

Unfortunately it ended up being one of the longer ones because again they had a problem drawing my blood. Rosanne thinks it might be something anatomical. After trying some tricks, she gave me the same medicine as last week, which worked without needing a second dose.

Both last week and this week the foot massage person came by but both times I was wearing the booties. Representatives from the Pitt women’s basketball team came today; they have a game on Sunday that’s being called Pink the Pete, for Petersen Events Center. They’ll all wear pink armbands to support breast cancer. One of the basketball players gave me a bag of Pitt gear: a pink Pink the Pete t-shirt, Pitt face mask, and a shocking pink Pitt beanie. She offered tickets to the game, but I declined. One guy who might have been a coach watched Doran and I play cards for a bit – who knew we’d have an audience‽

Three more. That does sound a lot better than four!

The blog software was wonky last week, which resulted in many people not receiving an email notification for last Friday’s post. If that was you, go read it now, I’ll wait.

Ok, good, now we’re all caught up!

Usually acupuncture helps with fatigue and energy levels but not this week. I’ve been sleeping a lot. I’m afraid the cumulative effects of chemo will be the starting players going forward. I’m on a mountain – I can see the summit, but it’s going to be hard and painful getting there.

I messaged one of the PAs about this, and she confirmed this morning that it is very common to have increased fatigue towards the end of treatment due to their cumulative nature. She said it’s important to eat and drink to stay nourished and keep up my strength, and to take breaks and rest when I feel I need to.

When it comes to my taste buds what I miss the most is that tangy/tart/sour taste that I so love in my orange juice, candies, and desserts. Those things now taste too sweet. If you know me, you’re probably shocked to see these words!

My hair slowly continues to come in. Last night I noticed the bald patches are now seeing growth. Progress!

A surprising symptom that popped up this morning – foot pain along the side of my left foot, near the bottom. Maybe I stumbled and don’t remember it. I asked Maddie, the PA, if this could be neuropathy as I didn’t know if it showed up just in the toes. She said it sounds like it most likely is neuropathy, which can affect any part of the foot. Great… She said to take Vitamin B6 100 mg twice a day. I was only taking it once a day, so I’ll add yet another pill to my stash.

I went to the dermatologist today because I’ve had uncontrollable itching on my upper back, and it’s spreading onto my arms and neck. She said it’s eczema, caused by the chemo dehydration. I got a prescription cream. Chemo – the gift that keeps on giving!

My vitals are always taken prior to bloodwork. I don’t know what was up with the blood pressure cuff, but it had a mind of its own and wanted to squeeze the life out of me. The medical assistant pulled out another one, but it did the same thing. She resorted to taking my blood pressure manually.

Typically, the nurses have difficulty drawing blood from my port. I have to turn to the left and/or lie back (damn, there’s that lay vs lie issue again!), and/or put my right arm up over my head. None of those tricks worked today. They said the port had some buildup, which is common after a while. They asked the doctor for permission to give me a medication through the port that would dissolve the buildup.

A platelet count was necessary for this, though, so Rosanne tried drawing blood from my right arm. But no blood was coming out – and I have good veins! Onto the left arm, which thankfully worked. She didn’t want to waste a stick, so she left it in, saying we’d take it out once the port was working. It was uncomfortable and hurt, and made me appreciate the port all over again!

The approval came in for the medication, so the nurse (I never caught her name) pushed it in and left the vial attached. Half an hour later, she checked to see if it was working. Of course it wasn’t, so she left it in for another half hour or so. Thankfully by that point, it had done its job. Out came the stuff in my left arm, and I got the pre-meds and then the Taxol. Whew.

Now I only have FOUR treatments left! One for each week in February. This past week was similar to the one before, where I was dragging and had symptoms like nausea. Even yesterday and this morning, I wasn’t feeling great, when normally I’m in better shape. But the light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter!

This past week was rough symptom-wise. Last Sunday, I was hit with fatigue so bad I felt like sludge for the next few days and had trouble getting off the couch. Acupuncture helped a bit. I also had a few episodes of strong nausea, and of course the weird taste/dry mouth persists. I asked if this is any indication of how the next several treatments will go. Sometimes one treatment can be better or worse than another, and fatigue is likely to continue.

One of my blood labs came back quickly this morning, but we had to wait longer for the thyroid one; I think we waited 2-2.5 hours total. When I was brought back for treatment, my nurse Laura gave me some good news: No steroid! That means hopefully I will sleep tonight! And that meant just half an hour for Keytruda and an hour for Taxol, so at least treatment was faster than normal.

For some reason, the mittens and booties were especially hard to wear today – they were SO DAMN COLD! I had to keep taking them off to give myself a break!

I got a call from the surgeon’s office this week to schedule my mammogram and ultrasound and pre-surgical visit with Dr. McAuliffe. Even though the scans aren’t until the end of February and the visit a week later, they’re now on the calendar!

Here’s hoping this week is more of an “up” week!